News Round-up: McKinsey, Deloitte, Booz Allen and More

Hello folks. I know: for the last few weeks you have struggled mightily to cope without your go-to source for the most relevant and interesting consulting news the industry has to offer. But fear not: your cruel drought has ended. The news round-up is back on Consult THIS and better than ever.

Let's pick up right where we left off. While there haven't been any Gupta-worthy blockbusters in the past few weeks, the biggest names in the industry have been as busy as ever. And yes, McKinsey's fallen czar is among them.

Gupta Scandal

There's never any rest for the weary, and ex-McKinsey managing director Rajat Gupta is one tired old dog. After Raj Rajaratnam, Gupta's "co-conspirator" in a massive insider trading scandal, was convicted on all counts earlier in May, the harsh media spotlight turned once again to Gupta and the prestigious consultancy that made his name.

Among the revelations: Gupta and Anil Kumar, himself a convicted insider-trader hailing from the McKinsey executive ranks, spent much of their stints at the firm running a "secret side" consulting shop - a lucrative idea, for certain, but one that goes very much against McKinsey's internal rules. Further, Gupta spent a good deal of his time on McKinsey's dollar independently advising companies that weren't McKinsey customers. This, and a few other choice allegations (one involving a wild retirement party with some bedazzled elephants) inspired Bloomberg and the Washington Post to declare that Gupta had "secretly defied" his former employer for years. Others have suggested that Gupta led a "double life" as a sleazy self-serving business advisor. Worse yet, they've started propagating this possibly-doctored photo about the web.

New faces

After announcing last month that Barry Salzberg, formerly the company's head of consulting, would take the helm of the greater organization, Deloitte moved quickly to attach a new face to its consulting brand. The newly-elected leader of Deloitte Consulting LLP is Jim Moffatt, a longtime Deloitte veteran and a sensible choice to succeed Punit Renjen, who leaves the post to serve as board chairman of Deloitte LLP (some brief field notes: Deloitte Consulting is the firm's consulting unit in the US and serves as the organization's flagship consulting division, while Deloitte LLP represents the broader brand in the US, including the firm's accounting division). A firm statement highlighted Moffatt's direct experience consulting on business and IT projects across the world.

The top post at Big 4 mainstay KPMG also changed hands last month, as outgoing chairman Tim Flynn passed the baton to chairman-elect Michael Andrew. While Flynn was something of an audit specialist, Andrew's background is in tax issues; of course, neither of those represent a nod to the firm's consulting strengths (compared to, say, Salzberg's election at Deloitte).

By the Numbers

Revenues at major consultancies continue to rebound after seeing recessionary declines over the last couple of years, imparting a sense of cautious optimism on the industry. Booz Allen Hamilton, for example, announced near double-digit revenue growth for its fiscal year 2011, which wrapped up on March 31, having beaten its 2010 tally by more than 9 percent. The firm reported impressive growth across its divisions, with its cyber and health units enjoying particularly robust development. Reason for caution remains, though, as fellow IT advisory big-swinger CSC might attest: Despite a decent overall year revenue-wise, CEO Michael Laphen admitted that 2011 had been a "challenging" fiscal year for the company. Citing "unexpected difficulties in the Nordics," (more on that to come) "the NHS uncertainty," and "delays in the Federal budgets," Laphen revealed just how much global struggles in the public sector have affected the big government players.

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